How coaching prevents and treats physician burnout [PODCAST]

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“Physicians are advocates of health. This must include our own. Physicians identify threats to health. This must include those that threaten our own – burnout is proven a grave threat. Physicians seek, prescribe, and perform curative treatments. We have the treatment for burnout available – we must prescribe it for each other and seek it for ourselves. Physicians advocate for vaccination as prevention. We have the inoculation for burnout – we must make it widely accessible and encourage collective participation to gain the necessary herd immunity.

We have available to us a single solution that fulfills both prevention and cure for the pandemic of burnout – this single treatment will sustain the workforce that is needed to navigate the other pandemics we face. Coaching empowers us to continue our work in advocating for health, identifying and eliminating threats with our compassion, expertise, empathy, and lives intact. We must lead by example, ask for the help we need, use prevention as medicine, and emerge together immune to the toxicities threatening our profession and eradicate the disease of burnout through coaching.”

Amelia L. Bueche is an osteopathic physician and founder, This Osteopathic Life.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “How coaching prevents and treats physician burnout.”

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show we have Amelia Bueche. She’s a physician coach and osteopathic physician, and she wrote the KevinMD article “How coaching prevents and treats physician burnout.” Amelia, welcome to the show.

Amelia L. Bueche: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into the article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Amelia L. Bueche: Definitely. So my specialty is super long, all the syllables: neuromusculoskeletal medicine and osteopathic manipulative medicine, and I use predominantly hands-on treatment. It’s an interesting time to be on here, as we’ve seen the physician to the president is a DO, and there’s been all this kind of controversy in the press. But to me, practicing osteopathic medicine just made sense: treating to the health, speaking to the tenets of structure and function and the possibility for self-healing that each and every one of us has. What I’ve noticed is that moving into coaching has allowed me to really step into that, because in coaching, we tell people to see that they have the answers to the questions that they have, and so it’s really tapping into the health in that way.

So I’ve been in private practice, I’ve worked as a residency program director, and I’ve been a teacher in lots of different facets. I’m really moving into that coaching space so I can help bring health to medicine in new ways.

Kevin Pho: And why do physicians specifically make good coaches?

Amelia L. Bueche: I think that ability to listen, to build rapport pretty quickly. We’re trained to ask meaningful questions and listen for answers. I’ve noticed that that interviewing skill has been one of the greatest assets that I see among myself and this growing body of physicians who are trained as coaches as well.

Kevin Pho: So let’s talk about your KevinMD article, “How coaching prevents and treats physician burnout.” Now, for those who haven’t read that article, can you walk my audience through it and perhaps share the story of why you decided to write it?

Amelia L. Bueche: Yes. So for me, I’ve had my own experience with burnout in different iterations and phases. Looking back and seeing what would have been helpful, the recovery portion, and also what could help me going forward, coaching really has been that, because, like I said, it speaks to those osteopathic tenets of organizing structure and function: helping our thoughts to improve the function in our lives, and noticing that relationship of our thoughts, such as our mind, to our spirit, which is our feelings, to our body, which represents our actions, which lead to our results, which is our health. If all physicians had access to the awareness of that, and the support to see what they’re truly capable of, of their own amazing inherent worthiness, and where they can truly exert their power by only taking responsibility for that which they can control, I see a huge opportunity to heal and prevent burnout, which really is a pandemic of its own in the practice of medicine.

And so in writing this, I sought to provide encouragement, to let physicians know that they’re not alone, to normalize the experience of burnout insomuch as it happens frequently, but to stop normalizing it as an appropriate thing that happens in medicine, and to say that coaching is a tool for recovery, for prevention, and really for bolstering. So if you think you’re doing pretty well, coaching can also help level you up. It’s not just for the broken, but it can be for those who are doing well and want to stay that way, or even grow and do better.

Kevin Pho: Now, how does a clinician know whether he or she would need a coach?

Amelia L. Bueche: Well, personally, you could use a coach for all kinds of things, and I certainly have a bias up front there. But I think if you notice that you feel disenchanted with medicine, if you’re not doing the things that you would normally enjoy doing, clinically or outside of the practice of medicine, if you notice maybe you’re disengaged from relationships in the way that you might want to be engaged with them, if you find yourself kind of lamenting more and more names on the schedule as they show up, those can all be warning signs. And it can be subtle as well, right? We can look at some of those signs of fatigue, of not feeling as fulfilled as you did, of just kind of being exasperated. And right now, that’s really been exaggerated because of so many things culturally and socially that are happening.

So just listening: Have I stopped feeling like myself? You know, that’s the one question I think can be really useful in knowing that a coach can help reflect back to you who you are, who you are now, who you’d like to be, those pieces of yourself that might have been hidden. Those are the ways I think it can be helpful to tune you in, beyond some of those extreme measures.

Kevin Pho: So let’s say you’re a clinician who exhibits all those symptoms and comes to someone like you for coaching. Now, what’s a typical treatment plan, or what kind of advice and guidance would you give them?

Amelia L. Bueche: The best part is helping them see, like I said, that they have the answers, because they’re the only ones who are in their own specific life. Coaching can certainly provide some instruction, some guidance, and some feedback, but really it’s helping you to find out: What are the questions you really want to ask? What is it you want to do? Where do you want to go, and what’s the best way for you to get there? It’s really holding space for you to tap into that amazing inherent intelligence that you have, and oftentimes we just let it go dormant, or it gets hidden or layered over with all these other things and responsibilities in our life.

And there are lots of different ways to engage. You can do one-on-one coaching, there’s group coaching, and there are programs where you have kind of a combination of curriculum and coaching to go along with that. There are lots of different ways to serve, depending on what works best for the individual and how much time to invest. It might be six weeks, it might be six months, and it might be ongoing. And there are also lots of different types of coaches. They can get really specific: if you have an entrepreneurial dream, if it’s a relationship-based piece. There are lots of different ways to tap into that specifically.

Kevin Pho: So within your clientele, what kind of age distribution are you seeing?

Amelia L. Bueche: It’s a wide range. So I have physicians who are early on, and I would say that first five years, some of those transitions out of residency can be really key times for coaching. And I also have some who are at this later stage in their career, looking for that reinvention, almost like they’ve closed that chapter on what they experienced in medicine, or what they anticipated experiencing, and they’re ready to see, “What do I do now?” That’s a question that faces physicians a lot, because we follow this path. There’s kind of this predetermined path of where we should end up, and when we get to some of those forks in the road, or maybe the end of a certain chapter, it’s kind of like, “Where do we go now?” So I’ll get people at that stage in their life too. I’ve been surprised to have both genders, all specialties, and a wide range of ages participate in coaching.

Kevin Pho: Now, you said earlier that physicians themselves make great coaches. If a clinician wants to be a coach, how can they break into the ranks?

Amelia L. Bueche: There are a lot of different training programs. The one that’s been the most popular right now among physicians is The Life Coach School; that is where I trained. There are also different opportunities for high-performance coaching. Out at Harvard, there’s kind of more of an internal program. Some of the colleges, the College of Surgeons, have opportunities there. So there are a lot of different ways to get certified. I think it’s important to just know what works for you, right? It’s an unregulated field, so there’s not a requirement to have a certification. I think as physicians, we’d like to have background and training and support, but what I would say is, if you can find a place where you can have the community of physicians going through that training with you, that is the most helpful, from my experience. That’s been as high value as the training itself: having that community who are making that shift from thinking about things purely clinically to coming into that coaching mindset.

Particularly because we’re not necessarily giving a lot of direct, instructive coaching in that way; we’re giving more of that space. And that’s the one place I think physicians do need to remember: They’re not required to give a prescription through coaching, right? They’re actually holding space for their clients to have answers.

Kevin Pho: And in general, how intensive and how long are these programs in order to become a coach?

Amelia L. Bueche: They vary. So the one I went through was six months of direct training and then another six months of specialty training, either in growing your coaching skills or growing your business skills around coaching. I would say most that I’ve heard of range from kind of a six-week program; some were weekend intensives, and then you do some follow-up. There’s also the International Coaching Federation, where you submit back the hours that you’ve coached. It’s kind of like an apprenticeship, where you’re learning on the job, and then you apply back to get certified once you’ve demonstrated that you’ve been coaching.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Amelia Bueche. She is an osteopathic physician and physician coach, and she wrote the KevinMD article “How coaching prevents and treats physician burnout.” Now, if you’re a clinician who’s considering looking for a coach, what are some of the things that they should be looking out for? You mentioned it’s a pretty unregulated field, so what are some red flags that you avoid, and things you should look for?

Amelia L. Bueche: I think you could look for those certifications. Most people have their endorsement on their website, whether they did The Life Coach School or the International Coaching Federation. I think looking for someone who is perhaps willing to have what we call a discovery call with you, to get to know you, to see if the personality match is there. That could depend; if someone’s quite busy, they may no longer offer those to you, but that can be a useful tool. And to notice if they’re speaking to what it is that you want to achieve. Like I said, there are lots of different niches and methods that coaches use, and other times you’ll find that connection. So looking up: Is there a particular problem you’re hoping to solve? If you investigate that, you will likely find a coach that fits that finding.

If you want to get CME, that can be an option as well, which is a really brilliant and helpful way to tap into it, so we can utilize some of those funds that are available to us and get credits that way and have coaching. Not necessary, but that’s an avenue you could pursue.

I think just remembering to be coachable, and I think being willing to accept that you do have the answers, because a lot of times you might show up and just say, “OK, tell me the 10 steps and I’ll do them.” We’re good at that, right? We’re good at following that plan and executing at a really high level. But being willing to say, “OK, I’m willing to have somebody ask me maybe some challenging questions, and that actually, I do know what to do. I just haven’t learned how to tune into that, because I have been driven by these external markers for so long.” That’s what I would say: being open to the coaching experience.

As far as red flags, there’s really no one right time, frequency, or price. It can really range widely. Just knowing what you’re willing to invest in yourself, and perhaps seeing: Do I want to be under a contract? Do I want to agree to give this a try for six weeks, knowing that I can redecide at that time? I would say if you can avoid getting into a massive contract, that can be helpful, so that you can make the decision on the fly. But I would say give it a good six or 12 weeks to really know if a difference is being made for you.

Kevin Pho: Now, during your journey from clinical medicine to coaching, what’s the number one lesson that you could share with my clinician audience?

Amelia L. Bueche: I think that idea that you do know what to do, and that you can find success in any situation. So for me, I’ve changed jobs, I’ve changed locations, kind of chasing that “I’ll feel better when” idea. What I’ve learned, really in this last year, and particularly six months, because of so much of what’s happened, is that by addressing my thoughts and my approach to a situation, I can feel comfortable where I am. I can still change it. I can still change some of those factors that I indeed have, but I also know that it’s however I show up in that situation that’s going to make the biggest difference. And so know that wherever you are, you can find success, and you can be empowered to change it from a very different place, knowing that changing it isn’t going to make you feel better, but it’s your thoughts, whether you stay or whether you change something, that really are going to bring you satisfaction and contentment in a situation.

Kevin Pho: And my final question: What is your take-home message that you want to leave with my audience?

Amelia L. Bueche: I want to let everyone know that coaching is for you, and not because you have something wrong with you or because you need to do something different, but because you have amazing capacity within you, and we need that reflection sometimes. We need an external mirror to show those pieces of us to ourselves. So give it a try, see what coaching can open for you, and hopefully keep us all more involved, engaged, and loving the practice of medicine.

Kevin Pho: And how can people find you?

Amelia L. Bueche: They can find me at thisosteopathiclife.com, and that’s my Facebook page as well, and just Amelia L. Bueche on Facebook and LinkedIn as well.

Kevin Pho: Amelia, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Amelia L. Bueche: Thanks so much.

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